Sir Roger Scruton was a writer and philosopher who held positions at the universities of London, Oxford, Boston and St Andrews and who wrote widely on art, architecture, music and aesthetics. His books include his now classic Short History of Modern Philosophy (1981), The Aesthetics of Music (1997), Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's Tristan and Isolde (2004) and The Ring of Truth: The Wisdom of Wagner's Ring of the Nibelung (2016). He was a fellow of the British Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.